I’m writing this from the mezzanine at the House of Blues in Houston, enjoying Nick Waterhouse’s soundcheck. It’s about an hour before doors, and soon the venue will be quiet, mercifully so for the staff as they hurriedly prepare for the thousand or so punters already lined up around the block.

I usually take this time to meditate for a few minutes in the back of the venue, thinking about how many shows I’ve seen from this vantage point, wondering how a romantically underachieving dweeb earns a spot under neon lights.

I can confidently report that I still haven’t the faintest idea, but it gets me thinking about the nature of dreams - how someone might tell you they’re not real because they’re not made of matter, can’t erode and disperse in an unremarkable gust. But dreams are real. They’re made of viewpoints, images, stupid jokes, memories, and hopes both lost and newly discovered. They’re everything that makes us who we are.